Fear

Abstract

What has fear to do with creativity? How can a highly valued process be related to such an ugly emotion? It sounds frightening. From an evolutionary point of view, fear is very useful. If you are a weak, naked primate and you hear a noise in the grassy savannah it might be time to start running. But if you are a slightly more civilized primate and you are thinking to start a family, living in a perennial state of fear will not help your marital status. You must find a more creative way to cope with everyday uncertainties (see also Chapter 8). The question of how mankind has been able to rise above a natural state of fear and build civilization has always been one of the fundamental questions of moral and political philosophy. Emotional experiences, such as fear, are common to all animal species, but emotions as immediate responses to environmental changes are binding us to the hic et nunc of an eternal present. We had somehow to develop different ways to cope with emotions in order to become what we are today as a species. Ethological evidence tells us that we share with other species some capacity for learning, using tools, modifying the environment, treasuring experience and transmitting knowledge apart from genetic selection. Nevertheless, it is certain that we are the only living beings, as far as we know, that are able constantly, voluntarily and collectively to construct and to deconstruct abstract and non-existing ‘objects’, such as divinity, love, society, ethics, and so on, in order to guide future-oriented actions (Valsiner, 2014).